Book Twenty Four - Clown Girl

I decided to read Clowngirl by Monica Drake since I read that it was being made into a movie and the concept seemed interesting so I thought I would check it out. Overall I was underwhelmed. I think that it was built up too high, there is an introduction by Chuck Palahniuk that hypes the book up to the point where it may have been difficult for anything to deserve such praise. The book was a decent read, but I spent most of the book waiting for something interesting to happen.



Clowngirl follows our protagonist Nita or Sniffles as she is referred to in costume. She lives in Baloneytown (names as such as that is all the inhabitants can afford to eat). She has been separated from her lover who is off trying to get into clown college. When we meet her she is put into the hospital for some kind of heart problem or panic attack. She seems to hit a lot of bumps and difficult situations in her life.

In the world that this novel describes clowns are much more prevalent. There are artistic clowns, clowns sans frontiers, corporate clowns and of course clown hookers. There are a great many clown fetishists around. The life of a clown is a difficult one, many consider themselves to be suffering artists.

It will be interesting to see how this book is turned into a movie. The plot is fairly thin as far I am concerned. I guess at heart it is a love story, the age old struggle between the nice guy and the bad boy. But even that part of the story is not entirely fleshed out. Drake is an excellent writer but I was not a huge fan of this book.